Widowmaker Jones (28 page)

H
e caught up to the judge and the women several hours after dark. He almost rode by them, but Kizzy's dog darted away into the night as if he had found something. And then he caught the silhouette of their horses skylined by the moonlight on top of a low hill. They had made no fire for fear of pursuit.

“Thought you were a goner for sure,” the judge said.

“It was touch and go there for a moment,” Newt replied.

“We ain't lost those Apaches,” the judge said. “Not by a long shot. They know they have us outnumbered, and that we're only two men with a couple of women.”

“If they're coming, they're coming slower than before. I shot all of their horses but two that turned tail on me and ran off.”

“That'll help.”

“We'll get a little rest, then we'll move on.” Newt dismounted.

“Thank you for what you did back there. You risked your life for us.” It was Kizzy's voice, and after a moment he recognized her shadowed shape standing very near to him.

“Are you all right?”

“I'm fine.”

“What about my papa? Won't he come through those Indians?” It was the Alvarez girl who spoke then, and her voice sounded as tired as Newt felt.

“He's got enough men that such a little war party probably won't bother him.”

Newt jerked his saddle off the Circle Dot horse and let it fall to the ground with a thump. He hadn't caught more than a couple of hours' sleep in almost two days. He slipped the bridle off the horse and replaced it with a rope around its throatlatch so that it could pick at whatever nearby grass it could find.

“Las Boquillas shouldn't be far away,” the judge said. “Never came at it from this direction, but it shouldn't be too far.”

“Give me a couple of hours of sleep.” Newt didn't untie his blanket, and simply lay down with his head resting on the saddle.

“Do you think Don Alvarez sent men back for my brother?” Kizzy asked.

Newt didn't answer her.

“Is he asleep?” she finally asked.

“That he is. I think the Widowmaker is all tuckered out,” the judge said.

“I can't believe he stayed behind for us. I was wrong about him.”

“Ain't you learned that he's a fool for any kind of a fight? That don't make him a good man.”

“I think he is. Maybe he doesn't know it, but he is.”

* * *

They rode into the village of Las Boquillas a little before daylight the next morning. The only one stirring in the village was a small boy who met them on the road, taking a herd of goats out to graze for the day.

The village was no more than a score of adobe and picket houses set on a low rise a couple of hundred yards above a shallow, rocky shoal on the river where the canyon walls petered out and allowed for a crossing. Newt led them in the gray morning light to a picket corral at the first home they came to, and dismounted with the fence hiding them from anyone like the goat herder who stirred so early in the morning.

Newt left his companions and walked to the corner of the corral, looking down the road where it passed through the rest of the settlement. It was still dark enough that the village was nothing but shadows and silhouettes, and he had a hard time making anything out.

The judge came to join him and took a seat with his back to the fence. “There's a tavern at the far end, overlooking the river. Used to be a trading post, but the most recent owner has a few rooms to let out in the back of it. See anything down there?”

“I don't see any horses out in front of it, if I'm looking at the right building.”

“Henry O'Malley owns that tavern. He's an Irishman that deserted from the army during the war down here back in '47. That old crippled devil is a has-been horse thief and outlaw himself, and the kind to be friends with Cortina.”

Newt squatted down at the fence corner to wait for better light. “Cortina might already be across the river.”

“If he's holed up in O'Malley's, there's liable to be more of his kind in there with him. Nobody comes here unless they're out of options, or on the run from something.”

“Soon as the sun comes up, we go looking for him.”

The judge produced a bottle and uncorked it and took a drink.

“Where did you get that?” Newt asked.

“Had it in my saddlebags. Want a pull? There ain't much left.”

Newt took the bottle and turned it up. It was tequila, and bad tequila at that. He grimaced at the bite of the liquor and then took another swig of it before passing it back to the judge.

“Didn't know you were a drinking man,” the judge said.

“I try to stay away from it most times.”

“I've found that work like this is easier when you're drinking.”

“You mean killing.”

“I mean anything that's hard. You either drink until you're mean enough to do what has to be done, or you drink afterward to drown your guilty conscience.” The judge sloshed the contents of his bottle around and listened to the sound to gauge how much was left.

Newt leaned around the corner of the corral again and scanned the settlement. There was nothing else moving.

“Boy, you're good at this stuff. Comes easy to you.”

“You think I like this?”

“I didn't say you liked it. I said it was easy for you. You ought to quit trying to be such a do-gooder. Do you think that Gypsy girl yonder is going to be so thankful to you for saving her brother that she crawls in the sack with you? Stick to your talents, son.”

“And what are my talents?”

“Mayhem and destruction. It ain't much, but there are few that are really good at it.”

“I'm not who you think I am.”

“You're exactly what I thought you were when I first laid eyes on you. You're a fighter, plain and simple. Maybe when this is over you ought to go back to boxing, or become a bounty hunter or detective, or maybe I could put in a word for you with the Rangers. Leave the easy living for the soft folks.”

The judge turned the bottle up and finished it in one long pull before he pitched it in the weeds. “Did I ever tell you about a man I once knew? His name was Kirker, and he made his living hunting down Apaches and selling their scalps to the Mexican government. Not the nicest fellow you ever met, but crazy brave and never met no kind of trouble he thought he couldn't handle. He rode a one-eyed horse and had a half-breed Comanche tracker that stood seven foot tall and could smell an Apache a mile away if the wind was right. I mind the time when old Kirker was . . .”

“It will be daylight soon.” Newt cut the judge off before he could go farther with one of his outlandish tales. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, but the taste of the tequila wouldn't go away. He hated the taste, but he would have taken another drink if there were any left. The judge was right about that, if nothing else. Liquor made some things easier. And knowing that Cortina might be close by had his nerves on end, and the judge's constant chatter didn't help things.

“That's fine if you don't want to hear the rest of my story. Just fine,” the judge said. “How long are we going to wait? I never could stand waiting, especially with no one to swap yarns with. You want me to scout around and see what I can find?”

Newt would have preferred that the judge stay put, but then he would have to listen to more of his talk. “If you do, stay out of sight as best you can. Cortina will spook easy if he's around.”

The judge went to his horse and took his scattergun off his saddle horn. He stuffed his vest pocket full of shotgun shells from his sack, and then went around the backside of the corral, hugging close to the fence.

When he was gone Newt went to where the women were and found the Alvarez girl had lain down by the fence and was fast asleep. Kizzy sat close to her, holding their horses and petting her dog, who lay alongside her.

“When it gets good and daylight, I'm going to go look for Cortina. Would you watch over the girl while I'm gone?”

“I will.”

“If something happens to me and the judge, you hole up here and wait for Don Alvarez. Have him take you back to Zaragoza with him.”

“Okay.”

Newt tried to think of something else to say, but everything he thought of seemed trivial or awkward.

“Do you think you'll find the rest of your gold?” she asked.

“I doubt it. I told myself I came down here after it, but that never was all of it.”

“You came down here to kill him.”

He nodded. “I did.”

“I thought I wanted to kill him for stealing our horses, but all I want now is to get Fonzo back and forget this ever happened,” she said. “I want to go somewhere so far away that I can forget everything.”

“It will all be over before long, one way or another. If Cortina isn't here, we're going to have to see if Alvarez will trade his daughter for your brother.”

“You sound so calm about it.”

“It is what it is.”

“After Papa died all I could think about was how bad we had it, and wished I could snap my fingers and everything would be like it had been. Nothing was good enough, and everything I thought I wanted I couldn't have.”

“And you found it can be a lot worse.”

“Yes,” she answered. “Don't you go down there after Cortina. Let him go. We'll trade her for Fonzo like you said. If Don Alvarez has any intentions to treat my brother fairly, it has nothing to do with whether or not you catch or kill Cortina for him.”

“No, I've got it to do.”

“Is it worth getting killed? The only way to deal with men like Cortina is to stoop to their level. Is it worth that? What about your talk of starting a wagon shop? You said you wanted to be someone different.”

“In time.”

“How old are you?”

Her question threw him off guard. “I'll be thirty-two come next month.”

“Somehow I thought you were older.”

“I feel older. Lord, I do.”

“I don't mean so much that you look older, it's that you seem so sure of yourself.”

“I'm not sure of anything. I haven't done one thing since I left home that didn't feel like I was gambling for stakes I couldn't afford.”

“Thank you for what you've done for me and my brother. If I never said it, I'm saying it now. Not many would have gone out of their way for a couple of Gypsies.”

“You're the first Gypsies I ever met.”

“We're not so bad, are we?”

He cradled the Winchester in the crook of one elbow and gauged the light spilling over the mountains to the east, anxious to be doing something. Anything. She stood beside him, and he took the Circle Dot horse's reins from her. Before he could go, she stopped him with a hand laid lightly on his forearm. When he looked down at her she tiptoed and kissed him lightly on the cheek. Before he could adjust she went to the far side of the other horses and left him alone.

He led his horse onto the road and started through the village without mounting. A light burned here and there in a window, and a woman passed by him carrying a load of laundry in the direction of the river. She stayed wide of him, casting nervous looks back at him as she passed.

The tavern at the far end of the village was seventy-five yards up the road, and made of adobe with the rafter poles protruding through the front wall. Smooth, peeled cottonwood posts held up a porch roof across the entire front of it, and two hitching rails were in front of the porch. There wasn't a horse tied to either of them. It was likely that Cortina had his horse corralled for the night if he was anywhere around. Newt paused in the middle of the dusty road that served as a street, looking for another set of corrals or a barn. Maybe the first thing to do was to put Cortina afoot.

“
Buenos días
,” somebody called out from inside the tavern.

Newt had heard that voice only one time, but he recognized it. He stopped in the street with his Winchester held before him in two hands.

“You took a long time coming,” Cortina called to him.

Newt guessed that Cortina was looking out of one of the tavern's windows or standing back in the shadows of the front door. Newt felt like easy pickings standing in the middle of the street like he was, and started walking at an angle to the nearest house on the same side of the road as the tavern.

“Why don't you hurry, gringo? You have come a long ways to find me,” Cortina said.

Newt reached the house and hugged close to the wall in the shadows, still trying to locate Cortina's position.

“Come on, gringo.” Cortina's voice was louder. “What do you think, Miguelito? The Widowmaker, I think he is scared.”

Another man laughed on the opposite side of the street, somewhere behind what looked like a chicken house and pen. “I don't think he likes us.”

Newt wondered where the judge was, and he wondered how many more might be inside the tavern with Cortina. Miguelito hadn't been with Cortina on the trail from Zaragoza, so they must have made arrangements to meet at the crossing.

The rising sun had slowly spread across the street and spilled onto the tavern's porch. He thought he saw a trail of cigarette smoke wafting from one window. He heard Miguelito move behind the chicken pen, and the rattle of his spurs. To Newt's left there was a gap between the house he stood against, and the little yard fence surrounding the next house. He stepped into the alley, pulling his horse with him. A large prickly pear plant had grown up at the corner of the cedar stay and wire fence, and he peered through it at the chicken pen across the street. The tavern was out of his line of sight.